


The Making of a Woman

by sockfics



Series: Once Upon a Dark Time [2]
Category: Mulan (1998), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Coercion, Contemplation of Forced Abortion, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Pre-SleepingWarriorPrince, Rape, Sexual Coercion, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Threat of Gang Rape, Underage Sex, Victim Blaming, anal rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:46:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7845574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockfics/pseuds/sockfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long before Fa Mulan found her way to the lands of Misthaven, she left her father's house determined to save his life by masquerading as a man and joining the Imperial Army in his stead.  Her intentions were good.  Her purpose was honorable.</p>
<p>Her plan was nowhere near foolproof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Making of a Woman

**Author's Note:**

> While this nominally takes place in the military encampment from the 1998 movie Mulan, this is part of my Once Upon a Dark Time 'verse. As such, it is essentially an exploration of what Mulan's backstory would be in that world. Her history before she encountered Belle and Prince Phillip in OUAT canon is largely unexplored, so Li Shang may or may not feature in it if the show ever chooses to depict her life before her yao guai hunt with Belle.
> 
> As with everything else under this pseud, this story contains triggery scenes and themes. Please heed all warnings and tags. Read at your own risk.
> 
> Continued blessings on my beloved Odhinn Maiden for her support.
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> __  
>  I DO NOT CONDONE SLAVERY, RAPE, COERCION OR ANY OTHER BEHAVIOR PORTRAYED IN THIS FIC.  
>    
>  **

**~~~***~~~**

When she was dragged into Li Shang’s pavilion, Mulan was certain her life was about to end. She had impersonated a man and joined the Imperial Army, and her motives for doing so were of no significance. In fact, they would only condemn her further.

Captain Li was seated at a table, reading reports about the Huns’ troop movements from their scouts, when she was flung to the ground at his feet by Chi-Fu. Although she longed to rise and confront her death as a warrior, she remained on her knees beside his chair as her discoverer expounded upon the enormity of her crime and the misfortune it would bring down upon them all unless she was executed at once. Unable to be as demure as her mother would wish even now, she lifted her head to gaze at her soon-to-be executioner.

He was gazing down at her, his dark eyes hooded in the lamplight. It seemed that he was only half-listening to Chi-Fu’s outraged edicts, and Mulan found a strange reason for hope in the considering expression on his handsome face.

“You say you discovered her true gender at the latrine ditch?” Li Shang finally asked, interrupting Chi-Fu’s furious diatribe.

“Yes!” Chi-Fu replied instantly. “She obviously thought she was alone, but you know how my digestion has responded-”

“And you told no one else?” He pulled his eyes from Mulan to look up at the Imperial liaison, his tone and expression sharp.

It made the officious little man falter, confusion at Li’s question overtaking his umbrage. “Why… no. This was a matter for you to deal with at once. A general announcement might have caused widespread problems with morale, and we can ill-afford-”

Li nodded, rising from his seat and stepping past Mulan. “You were wise to keep this silent. Once we dispose of this matter, no one need ever know it occurred.” He guided Chi-Fu to the entrance of the pavilion, holding the flap open in a gesture of dismissal. “Seek your bed, friend; I know you depart at dawn to return to the Forbidden City. Rest assured that this woman will be dealt with in a manner that befits her actions.”

Chi-Fu opened his mouth to argue, but whatever he’d been about to say died as something passed between he and the captain. There was a strange smile around his mouth when he closed it. “You have my… and therefore the Emperor’s… every confidence in this matter, Captain Li. Good night.”

Li murmured a response as Chi-Fu departed, letting the drape fall closed and turning back to face Mulan. As he walked back towards her, she braced for a blow, for the sound of steel being drawn free of a scabbard, but neither came as the captain stopped mere inches away. “Rise,” he commanded, his tone giving nothing away.

Uncertain of what was about to happen, Mulan did as he bid, knowing that her chances were better on her feet than her knees. She watched those dark, considering eyes roam over her body, could feel him trying to assess how she’d hidden her womanhood for all these weeks.

“Remove your clothes.”

Her mouth flew open on a gasp of outrage before she could think better of it; Li Shang answered with a sharp back-handed slap that nearly drove her to her knees again. “Remove your clothes, Fa Ping,” he repeated, his voice dangerous. “Or I will do it for you.”

Cheeks burning with shame, Mulan did as he bid, stripping away her simple sleeping garments to reveal her bound chest and narrow hips, her long slender legs and the soft thatch of dark hair that hid what lay between them. Her hands covered that portion of her anatomy instantly, her bindings giving cover to her modesty above the waist.

Li Shang’s eyes were strangely hot now as he examined her, settling on the linen wrapped tightly around her chest. “Is your father really Fa Zhou? Or have you lied about your lineage as well as your name?”

“My father is too frail to survive another war,” Mulan replied. “I came here in his stead to satisfy our family’s honor before the Imperial throne.”

“Such bravery for a woman.” Li Shang began to circle her; Mulan ducked her head as he did so, avoiding his gaze and the way it suddenly made her uncomfortable. “And have you lied about your age as well? Are you a spinster, hoping for glory as a man since you are a failure as a woman?”

She spun on him at that, her hands balling into fists at her sides as her modesty was forgotten in her anger. “I am **not** a failure at anything!” she snapped. “And all that I have lied about was my name.”

“And your sex,” Li Shang reminded her. He took a step towards her; Mulan fell back a step in response. Another step, and another, until her hips bumped the camp table he’d been reading at when she’d been brought in. He was chest to chest with her, his face inches from her own, his leg not quite wedged between hers. “You know what would have happened if it had been anyone but Chi-Fu that had found you, don’t you?”

Mulan swallowed; beyond losing her head, she hadn’t thought about what might happen to her if she’d been discovered. But the way Li Shang was looking at her just now set off a nameless, primal fear that made her want to run, no matter how tightly she was currently ensnared.

“Did you really believe that your father’s life was worth the risk?” Li continued, as if he didn’t truly expect her to answer his questions. “Or did you believe yourself too clever to be discovered by one of your fellow soldiers at something so simple as having a piss?” He chuckled darkly; it made her shiver. “You really are lucky that it was Chi-Fu, you know. Anyone else and you’d be on your back on the banks of the latrine ditch right now, and the ancestors only know how many of them you’d’ve been forced to service by morning.”

An indistinct image painted itself in her mind at his words, and Mulan couldn’t help biting her lip to keep back a whimper of fear.

“But instead,” Li Shang went on, as if oblivious to her reactions, “here you are.”

There was no warning. From one breath to the next, Mulan found herself spun around by his powerful hands and slammed forward until she was bent at the waist across his table, his right hand on her neck and his feet kicking her legs apart. She tried to struggle but he held her fast, his weight trapping her as two of the fingers from his left hand found her nether lips and pushed inside.

All at once, she froze, shock locking her limbs as the captain probed inside her body, the tug of skin on skin chafing as he explored her depths. After a moment, he seemed to stop, letting his fingers curl and brush at something he’d found there. “Well, well,” he murmured, his breath hot and clammy against the shell of her ear. “Fifteen or not, you are still a maid. Did you really think you could pull off this charade without sacrificing your maidenhead, little Ping?”

“Let me go!” she hissed, fearful of moving with his fingers inside her.

“Or what?” Li laughed. “You might have some of your father’s famous skills, little Ping, but I know now why you’re so pathetically bad at wielding them. You couldn’t hurt me even if you wanted to.” His fingers flexed again, then withdrew. “But I can help you with that… in exchange for a little cooperation, of course.”

Breathing hard, every muscle coiled to fight, it took everything Mulan had to remain still beneath him, to hear what he had to offer. “What do you want?”

“To teach you,” Li Shang said simply. “By day, you will remain Fa Ping, a recruit in the Imperial Army. You will learn how to use weapons, to fight hand-to-hand. You will learn how to be a soldier… a warrior.” The hand that had just been inside her was stroking her hip, his thumb brushing along the slight curve at her waist. “By night, though… well, by night, you will learn to please me with this lovely body of yours.”

The table shook beneath them as Mulan tried to push herself free; Li held her fast at the neck, leaning up and removing his left hand from her hip. “I would rather die than be your whore,” Mulan snarled.

“Then I suppose it’s a very good thing that it’s not up to you.”

There was a rustle of clothing behind her, making her redouble her efforts, but to no avail. She could not shake his grip at the back of her neck. He reached past her for something on the table, but thrashing as she was, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. All she could think of was pushing herself up far enough to break his hold or to slip from beneath it, to get enough leverage to find her way free of the cage of his body before…

Something slick and soft brushed along the seam of her backside. A ripple of shock went through her, stillness that cost her precious seconds…

And then two fingers were pushing back into her again: not up through her nether lips, but past the ring of tight muscle that formed the entrance to her rear passage. She cried out as they sank in to his base knuckles, spreading the slick along her inner walls, then twisting and scissoring, forcing her muscles to yield.

Shame flooded her body and she tried to reach back, clawing for the hand that held her down. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pry it free. Her anal muscles ached where he was stretching them wide, and tears burned in the corners of her eyes. “Stop it!”

“Believe me, little Ping: you don’t want me to do that.” Li’s fingers pulled out, gathered more of whatever oil he’d slicked them with, then pushed back in. There were three this time, and Mulan felt the shock of pain radiate through her body in a wave. “The men will all believe you’re my peach-bottom after all, and the best way to maintain a lie is to season it with truth.”

Desperation gripped her; ignoring the way it made the ache of his invasive touch worse, Mulan threw her weight to her left, against the weakness in his hold. It surprised him enough that his hold on her neck faltered and she fell away from his body, sprawling to the floor as she stumbled across his legs. Dimly, she heard his growl as she scrambled to get to her feet, heedless of her nudity as she made for the flap of the tent… she couldn’t best him with a sword, but if she could get to a horse…

Her feet were swept from beneath her and she fell forward, barely catching herself enough to keep her face from impacting the ground. Hands caught her hips and dragged her back… she shrieked and clawed at the ground, fighting for a hold so that she could pull away again… a hand threaded into her hair and turned her head before slamming it down against the ground… the air driven from her lungs as her vision swam from the shock of the impact…

Before her world could right itself, an arm like an iron band had wrapped around her waist and was holding her up, her knees shoved apart by his own. Something blunt and hard pushed against the tight furl of muscle he’d been stretching with his fingers and Mulan moaned as she tried to make the world stop spinning…

Resistance gave way and Li drove in hard, burying his thick length to the root. A scream tore out of her as he bottomed out, lancing pain so deep that Mulan could barely breathe. He gave her no respite, no chance to adjust. Taking hold of her hips in both hands, Li withdrew almost completely before thrusting back in, wringing another shriek of pain from her lips.

“Scream all you like, little Ping.” Li’s voice was mocking as he found the rhythm that pleased him, hammering her open with brutally deep thrusts. “No one in this camp is going to disturb us.”

Choking on tears, Mulan found enough strength to get up to her elbows, sparing her face from being abraded by the rough ground beneath the thin pavilion rug as his pistoning hips made her body judder and scuff beneath his own. The determination to deny him the sound of her pain had barely coalesced before it shattered again beneath his assault, and her cries broke in her throat as his ferocity intensified.

His hand found her hair, lacing to her scalp and yanking so hard that she thought it might tear free in his hand. It tore a new sound from her as the angle of his invasion changed with the bow of her spine, spurring him on even harder, impossibly deeper. And then he was growling again, pounding into her faster, the hand in her hair releasing and letting her head drop as it returned to her hips tight enough to bruise…

With a hoarse shout, he buried himself to the hilt with punishing finality. She wept as heat flushed up into her bowels, shame flooding into her along with his seed.

It seemed forever before it was finally over, his manhood no longer twitching inside her and his grip on her hips relaxing just a fraction. Without a word, he shoved himself free of her body and she crumpled to the ground with a gasping cry, the impact jarring through her and setting off a fresh burst of pain.

True to his word, no one from the camp seemed to have even noticed there was a disturbance in their captain’s tent.

She curled in on herself and lay motionless, willing the pain to recede. Mulan had spent a long time trying to steel herself against the potential injuries she could receive in battle, from minor bruises to being run through by a Hun’s war spear. Her imagination had never truly found the shape of what the pain would be like.

Now, she was sure no war wound could ever hurt this badly.

Above her, she could hear the rustle of Li Shang removing the rest of his clothing, the splash of water that said he was cleansing himself of the remnants of what he’d just done. Mulan hoped he would just ignore her, would prepare for bed and douse the lamps and leave her to crawl back to her own meager tent when moving no longer seemed unthinkable.

The grip on her arms as he hauled her up and manhandled her to his narrow bed tore that hope to shreds.

Unable to simply submit, Mulan struggled against his grip even as his weight came down on top of her. He’d put her on her back this time, his powerful thighs bracing her legs open and his renewed erection finding the vulnerable flesh between them. One of his hands took both of her wrists as the other looped a sash around them and tied it off, securing her arms to the bed frame above her head. “Stop!” she begged, casting aside any semblance of pride as he pushed her thighs open even wider. “Please, don’t.”

Cruel fingers slid down to part her lips, letting him seat the broad head of his erection against her entrance. “You really are a fool, little peach blossom.”

His fingers wrapped around her thighs like iron bands, keeping her splayed wide as he surged in, tearing through her maidenhead in one stroke. It dragged another scream from her lungs as he once again gave her no quarter, pounding against the gates of her womb with every thrust as her untried muscles were forced to accommodate his girth.

Time lost all meaning as he rutted inside her, his snarling grunts of effort a humiliating counterpoint to the way his flesh slapped against hers and the creak of the bed frame under the force of his thrusts. There was nothing left to fight against; Mulan could only wrap shaking fingers around the wood her wrists were tied to, letting the splinters drive under her short-cropped fingernails as her body was ploughed open without mercy, the pain of this invasion a dreadful mirror of the deep burning his manhood had left in her anterior muscles.

It took longer than it had during his first assault before Li’s rhythm began to stutter, his groans becoming more urgent and his grip on her thighs tightening so hard that she was sure he was leaving bloody half-moons in her skin with his nails. Almost too late she realized what was happening, panic clawing at her throat when she understood. “No, don’t… wait… Shang…!”

Her use of his given name seemed to be what tipped him over the edge. With a long moan, he found his release inside her, the head of his erection wedged against her womb as his seed burst forth in almost explosive gouts. Mulan felt the last gasp of resistance leave her at the sensation and she let her head drop back against the pillow, weeping as Li’s essence flooded into her body.

She was still weeping when he struck her again, once again backhanding her across the face for the temerity of using his given name. It did not stop her tears, nor did it lessen her abject shame as what her future held began to sink in.

Being revealed as a woman would mean that he could keep her as his whore openly, could share her with the men if he chose. It would surprise no one if the captain’s bed slave grew heavy with his child, and he could simply keep her as a concubine once the campaign against the Huns was at an end, presuming he survived. If he didn’t, someone else would take her as a spoil of war. She was completely unsuitable for marriage now, a disgrace to her family name and her ancestors.

Being allowed to keep her guise as a man meant living among the other soldiers, all of whom would see her limping from Li’s vigorous claiming and know that she had submitted to him as a bed slave… his peach-bottom boy. He could force her to pleasure him with her mouth in public without breaking the charade. And the other soldiers would sneer, would never respect her or her skills, because she was turning up her bottom for the captain’s pleasure every night. And if he got her with child, he could force her to lose it in order to maintain the charade.

No matter what happened from here, her life as a warrior of Chin was over before it had begun. And she could never return home to her family again.

Ignoring her tears, Li pulled himself free of her body and left the bed. He secured his belongings and doused the lamps, but there was a long pause before he climbed back into the bed between her legs. Whatever the reason, it had given time for his arousal to return, and he pushed into her abused body without preamble, her pained cry lost as he slid his hands beneath her hips and lifted them from the bed. The new angle let him shove two fingers into her back passage as he rammed into her channel even harder than before, and the avalanche of pain crashed through her until she was begging him to stop.

It was hours before he finally did so, curling his body around hers in a mockery of a tender embrace and falling into a deep sleep. Mulan lay awake in his arms in the quiet of the pre-dawn, more battered and sore than she had been after weeks of drilling for combat. Her tears slowly faded, though the deep ache of what he’d done to her throbbed with every heartbeat, and her mind slowly began to turn again.

He would allow her to keep her disguise as a man because it would humiliate her more than revealing her masquerade. Well and so; she would stay a man in public for as long as it took, and learn everything she needed to know.

She would be a warrior. Not for Chin. Not for her family. But not as Captain Li Shang’s peach-bottom whore, either.

The soul marks beneath the bindings he had never bothered to remove pulsed weakly for the first time since her assault. She closed her eyes, sinking into the faint twinges of comfort that her soulmates offered from afar. Someday, somehow, she would find them. Somehow, someday, she would ask them to overlook her despoiled virtue, to love her in spite of everything.

Knowing she would need to be up with the dawn regardless of the damage Li Shang had wrecked inside her body, Fa Mulan sent a faint pulse of hope back through the marks she bore and let herself drowse.

It was going to be a very long war.


End file.
